Wednesday in the 2nd Week of Lent: Letter 11 Notes

 

Be Kind Day – Today when I am recording

Feast of St. Joseph – March 19

Major Feast of the Church which means we celebrate it over any other day on the Church Calendar except a Sunday or a Feast of our Lord such as the Feast of the Ascension which we will celebrate next Tuesday.  So today you get to celebrate a little during Lent.

Joseph of course was the earthly father of Jesus – which had to be a tough job!  Imagine raising the Son of God!  Joseph appears in the first 2 Chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but is not mentioned in Mark or John.  The only other time is when Jesus is referred to as the son of Joseph, a carpenter. 

 Tradition teaches that Joseph was a good bit older than Mary and died shortly after Jesus was presented in the Temple in our Gospel reading for today from Luke.  He is the Patron Saint of fathers, carpenters, attorneys, emigrants, travelers and house hunters.  I have often heard that if you bury a statue of St. Joseph in the front yard near the “For Sale” sign, your house will sell faster.  I haven’t tried it.

 Now it is entirely possible that St. Joseph had a good sense of humor and laughed quite often with Mary and Jesus, which would tie him quite nicely with Letter 11.  We begin with the news that The Patient’s friends who we met in the last letter, the middle-aged couple who Screwtape described as “rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and brightly sceptical about everything in the world.” have introduced him to a whole new circle of like-minded friends.  From his research in Hell’s Record Office, Screwtape characterizes this new social circle as

“thoroughly reliable people; steady, consistent scoffers and worldlings who without any spectacular crimes are progressing quietly and comfortably toward our Father’s house.”

From here we learn that this group are “great laughers” and laughter should be approached with some caution.

Screwtape explains four types of laughter: Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy.

Joy is heavenly and comes from God much like music which can be quite joyful.  We know from the Bible that there is great joy in heaven.  It is basically just not possible to corrupt Joy so it is of little use to demons.

 The same is true of FUN which is closely related to Joy.  While it may be possible to use Fun to lead a patient into temptation, fun can also promote charity, courage, contentment, and many virtues.  Remember that demons cannot create virtues - only corrupt them. 

If the term Joke Proper seems unusual or confusing, just think of it as a PROPER JOKE.  This is Lewis’ way of referring to a joke that isn’t rude, obscene, vulgar, or derogatory, but is funny and makes you laugh.  Apparently “indecent or bawdy humour” is rarely useful to a demon.  Such humor can come across in 2 ways to both the teller and the hearer.  A bawdy joke can arouse either the passions or the morals and can quite often backfire. 

However, Screwtape suggests that the Joke Proper can be used to make serious subjects seem trivial, thus undermining their importance.  It can destroy shame, cowardice, cruelty, and a whole host of similar emotions. 

“But flippancy is the best of all.”  Everything can be funny and if nothing is taken seriously then the problems of our world can be dismissed.  Flippancy  creates a cynical attitude that dismisses everything as unworthy of serious consideration. By encouraging these types of laughter, Wormwood can lead his human "patient" away from virtue and towards a more superficial and dismissive outlook on life.

If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter.

Once again, we have a good example of how a heavenly CREATION like laughter can be corrupted by “our demon” and we follow that temptation turn a good thing into bad.

Our scripture lessons for today on this Feast of St. Joseph all point to the coming of Jesus as the Messiah and Joseph’s role in the Salvation of the World.  Take a minute and read them looking for the message of Hope.  And let us close today with the Prayer for the Feast of St. Joseph. 

Let us pray;

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.